The Horse Has Definitely Bolted From That Particular Barn

Among the possible consequences of the collapse of Iraq, Tim Ash mentions this item included by Fred Halliday:

the alienation of most sectors of Turkish politics from the West and the stimulation of authoritarian nationalism there

As opposed to the waves of pro-Western good feeling and galloping liberalism that currently characterise the Turkish body politic?  Say what you will about the rest of the region, but the idea that the Turkish political mood will become meaningfully more anti-Western after Iraq disintegrates is an odd one, simply because it is difficult for Turkish public opinion to become any more anti-Western than it already is.  Any previous enthusiasm for EU entry inside Turkey has cooled–many Turks have heard from Europeans that they are not really welcome in the club, and they have decided that they don’t really want to join anyway.  Turkish politics is often a competition over which party can be, or at least appear, the most authoritarian nationalist (here is Erdogan trying to out-nationalist the Nationalists).  It’s not as if a regime that criminalises speech and expression and represses its minority populations is currently in any danger of not being an authoritarian nationalist one.  To the extent that instability on its southern border strengthens the hand of the Turkish military (which is to say that the military would gain almost complete control, rather than its current significant level of control), greater chaos in Iraq might make the military more assertive in some ways.  Otherwise, it is pointless to worry about the possible anti-Western and authoritarian turns in Turkish politics–that ship has sailed.